


Orchestrated Chaos

by saitoplasm



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Gen, High School AU, band au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-03
Updated: 2014-08-16
Packaged: 2018-02-07 07:01:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1889406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saitoplasm/pseuds/saitoplasm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aiba and Nino attempt to form a band, but their potential members end up being the most reluctant candidates: a singer who doesn't care about his voice, an honor student with no time for hobbies, and a first year lacking in confidence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

 

Nino has come to accept the fact that every word from Aiba’s mouth is unexpected, unplanned, and usually unsafe. Words have a way of escaping from him, slipping out of his mouth before his brain has a chance to filter. It’s like Aiba leaks ideas; his brain is always moving, always looking at everything through this wide-eyed, anything-is-possible vision.  Aiba is a human brainstorm, a chaotic swirl of thoughts and experiments, though half of them are impossible and the other half incredibly dangerous.  What ever Aiba chooses to verbalize to Nino is usually the runoff of those idea-storms, a drop of a thought that winds up being something apart of something bigger, something more insane that even Aiba hasn’t thought of yet.

But ten years of knowing Aiba means he doesn’t bat an eye when his best friend shows up with a bag of something-or-other, or a flipboard notebook that details an elaborate plan to accomplish a simple task. Ten years means he’s always near a fire extinguisher or a suitable substitute, and has a packet of tissues in his pocket at all times.  Ten years means he’s ready.

At least, that’s what Nino thinks until Aiba says in the midst of their usual lunch break, “Let’s start a band!”

Lunch period is usually when students spread out across campus with their friends to eat and gossip before returning to classes.  Some go to the roof, even though it’s off limits, and some stay in the classroom and others sit on the grass outside.  Ever since their first year of high school, Nino and Aiba spend their breaks in the music room on the fourth floor, which doubles as an overflow supply closet for the sports clubs.  The space is smaller than the average classroom, and twice as full.  Amidst the stacks and general mayhem of equipment, there is only room for two metal desks, the kind with the chair and table attached. One is missing the chair’s back support, the other is devoid of a desktop altogether, just two naked metal poles.

Aiba sits on the floor, eating something that resembles, but isn’t quite mabo tofu, while Nino’s hunched over, cross legged on the backless chair playing a handheld game. A half-eaten piece of bread sticks out of his mouth.  He doesn’t bother to hold it in his hands, instead choosing to inhale more when the need arises.

 A beat or two passes before Nino realizes Aiba said something.  He coughs on the portion of melon bread he’s just bitten and removes the half eaten bun from his mouth.  “A what?” 

“A band, like with instruments and a singer and screaming fans that’ll want to steal stuff we’ve touched to sell on the Internet.  Doesn’t it sound like fun?”

“It sounds like a lot of work.”  Nino says, knowing this is basically the same thing as telling Aiba "no".  “Plus everything you own always smell faintly of curry, who’d want that?”

Persistence, however, is one of Aiba’s more impressive and irritating qualities. “But you’re already great on the guitar, and I play drums, and after that we only need,” he counts on his fingers as he goes, “a singer, a bass player…a keyboard would be good too. That’s only three people, and there’s tons of people in the school!”

“Yeah, but how many of them can play instruments?”

Aiba’s eyes roll upwards, trying to remember, “Probably tons,” he announces as the result of his calculations a few seconds later.

“And how many of those people would want to join a band where the guitar player is using a second hand, ten year old acoustic covered in stickers?” he glares at Aiba, remembering how he defiled his instrument five years ago with farm animals.  “And someone who brings new meaning to the phrase ‘marching to the beat of his own drum’?”

“It’s not my fault, I just get caught up in the music!”  As if to prove his point, Aiba starts air drumming.  He knocks over a bucket of baseball bats with a flailing arm. Nino laughs as Aiba yelps in pain.

“You were kicked out of one band already.  Remember middle school marching band?  What was it again, you got so carried away with the music you accidentally walked into a pole and everyone else followed you?  Didn’t you cause a pile up?  I’m pretty sure there were casualties.”  

Sputtering, Aiba protests, “That was _one_ time!”

“And that wasn’t enough?”  Nino finishes off his bread and arranges his legs so he’s perching on the chair like a bird, knees tucked under his chin.  “I don’t think it’s a bad idea, but who would be crazy enough to join?”

 Aiba laughs, a three-note chuckle that tells Nino he’s already thought of something. He props his spiral bound notebook against the only accessible portion of the white board and flips to the first page.  It’s covered in names and scribbles and data that, upon further inspection, probably couldn’t be obtained without some serious snooping. 

This catches Nino’s attention.  It’s not uncommon for Aiba to get really worked up about something, but usually he doesn’t put this much effort unless he’s really _really_ dedicated. That makes Nino nervous, and it also makes him interested.  Aiba has a way of making even the strangest things work. 

“So you have researched.  This is kind of creepy, the level of detail you’ve put into this.”  Nino squints at the chart skeptically, “blood type, really?”

“It’s a very important part of someone’s personality!  Like this guy,” Aiba points to a name scribbled in barely legible (incorrect) kanji, “Nishikido Ryo.”

 Nino grimaces, “Not him.  Anyone but him. He has guitar lessons after me and he scares me.  Plus I think he already made a band with some other guys.  Pretty much every transfer student from Osaka.”

“It’s lucky they all played instruments.”

“Scarily so.”

 ---

They spend the remaining time looking through Aiba’s list, arguing over the ones they recognized and doubting the ones they didn't.  Naturally Nino was wary of everyone, while Aiba was willing to pursue any opportunity, even if the candidate had only been playing their instrument for a month.  (how Aiba obtained this information, Nino did not want to know)  By the time they head back to class, every name had been crossed off for some reason or another.  Most, Nino realized, had joined Nishikido’s Kansai band, while others seemed ill fitting and inexperienced.  There were only 7 names on the list in the first place.

As Aiba prepares his notes and textbooks for the start of class, Nino clears his own materials off to make room to take his after lunch nap.  It’s a stroke of luck that he’s seated behind Aiba, the perfect cover to sleep without being caught.  “So are you going to give up on the band thing?” He asks as the teacher enters the room and the student’s lively chattering falls to hushed whispers.

“Our members will come to us.  It’ll be destiny, just you wait,” Aiba replies, incapable of lowering his volume, unembarrassed as the teacher gives him a sharp, reproving glance.

Nino crosses his arms, his voice muffled as he nestles his face on the desk. “I doubt it.”


	2. The Prodigy's Lullaby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Nino's aversion to work only results in more showing up on his doorstep

Clubs are an ever-present necessity in the lives of high schoolers, giving each student a chance to pursue hobbies and interests without interfering with their studies. But Nino’s never been one to voluntarily join groups, especially when they meet during his usual after school gaming time. Unfortunately, this is not enough to justify breaking the school policy of being in at least one extracurricular club. So Nino finds a way to kill two birds with one stone.

The Multimedia Entertainment Club has four members, the bare minimum required for any on-campus faction. They meet once a week for an hour and take regular educational field trips to Akihabara; “regular” meaning whenever Nino has extra cash to spend on the latest video games. Their members are Nino (the president and founder), Aiba (the vice president by default), Yuriko (the treasurer) and Yokoyama (the secretary/errand boy). They meet in the same abandoned music room/overflow sports storage where Aiba and Nino take their lunch. It’s cramped, but they improvise with a few cleverly balanced hockey sticks and a stack of weights.

Most of their meetings involve strengthening their teamwork by shouting and swearing over Mario games. 

At half past five, all of the members save for Nino had left. Yuriko rushed out around 4:30 claiming she had an important meeting to attend, which really meant there was a sale on extra spicy hot sauce at the local convenience store. Following shortly after, Yokoyama apologized profusely because he had to pick up his brothers from day care.

Due to a scheduling conflict with the wild animal club, Aiba was absent, which left Nino to roll up all the cords and hide them in the metal cabinet behind a stack of smelly spare uniforms. 

“Ninomiya!” A passing classmate dressed in gym clothes peers into the music storage room, but avoids entering. “Can you give me a hand?”

Instinctively, Nino declines. He recounts his refusal, seeing that his peer is sweating profusely and carrying more than a person his size should be able to handle. Slamming the door behind him, he takes half (maybe a little less) of the buckets and trash bags to the dumpsters outside. As thanks, he treats Nino to an iced coffee from the vending machine and they chat about the latest comedians. About an hour passes before Nino bids him farewell and heads for the main gate to go home.

Then it occurs to Nino that he forgot his bag. Normally he would’ve left it if it contained only school materials (he had finished his homework during class anyway), but he remembers that his DS is tucked away inside, along with another uneaten milk bun. 

These are both things he cannot live without.

Not having Aiba around to willingly sprint up the stairs makes Nino wish he had picked a club room on the first floor. Grumbling the whole way, cursing his short-term memory and even shorter attention span, Nino reaches the classroom. His breath is ragged and his legs feel a bit like jelly. He’s grateful that no one is around to witness his embarrassingly poor physical state.

Even the slowest clean up crew and most devoted clubs had gone home for the day. The halls were empty, sparkling clean, still wet from being mopped an hour earlier. Nino notices the baseball team still practicing outside so he approaches the window of the classroom next door and leans against the sill, watching.

His eyes dart back and forth, following the ball’s every move. Back in their first year, he and Aiba had joined the baseball club from the outset, but quit at the start of their second year. He misses it sometimes. But then he remembers all the insults and the pressure, to the point where Aiba cried on the way home from practice almost every day. He remembers buying Aiba a lot of candy and snacks to make him feel better (a financial deficit for a long term friendship investment), and he remembers going home and feeling worthless, dreading the next practice. He remembers every single insult and every time the coach yelled at him. In the back of his mind, repressed and fuzzy, is the memory of his last day on the team, when he yelled back.

But the metal crack of the baseball meeting the bat makes him forget everything, just for a second. 

A sudden clatter of footsteps awakens Nino from his daydream and he turns around, alert, walking out of the classroom and into the clubroom. His bag is on the floor, right where he left it.  
He thinks for a moment. Had the door been open when he came back?

Immediately Nino starts to worry, maybe even panic. Something could’ve been stolen, their hidden game consoles in the dirtiest, dustiest cabinet. Or worse, his DS from his bag, which he’s more concerned with because of the perfect game he’s spent hours, days completing. He’s already mourning that he’ll never get to see those scores again. All those digital trophies. 

He scans the room for intruders. A rusted volleyball pole casts a tall, skinny shadow that looks too much like a person for Nino’s comfort. Every time he thinks he sees something in the corner of his eyes, he turns around and it’s gone. 

The baseball team must’ve called it a day because the noise from their practice fades into indistinguishable chatter. Then Nino hears the singing.

It’s more like a humming, a faint, melodic whisper that can barely be heard. If there are words being said, Nino can’t decipher them, but the tune seems familiar, probably a song from his childhood that’d he’d forgotten until now. The voice is quiet but strong, unassuming but resonating. 

This time he looks around the room, but ignores the shadows and focuses on the light. Behind a stack of exercise mats in the corner of the room he notices a tuft of brown hair caught in the last glimpses of the sun. “Hey, what are you doing here?” Nino calls.

The intruder doesn’t move. Doesn’t even look up. Unsure if he’s being ignored, Nino approaches the figure obscured by the blue foam mats. He gets on his tiptoes to barely see over the top.

Sitting on the ground is a boy, someone Nino has never seen around school before. It’s probably a third-year, judging from the polished silver button on his uniform collar, but Nino’s pretty sure he’s met everyone in the school. Or they had met him, anyway.

The boy has a pad of paper in his lap. The page is covered in some intricate pencil sketch that Nino thinks might be an animal in a weird, abstract sort of way. 

“Hey!” Nino says again, louder this time. He shifts himself to block the window, casting a shadow in the small nook. This gets the boy’s attention. “Oh, hi.” He says casually, like Nino is a friend he bumped into while walking down the street. The earphones pop out of his ears and fall on the ground. Oh.

“What are you doing here?” And were you the one singing, Nino wants to ask, but doesn't.

“I fell asleep,” the boy explains through a yawn, “and when I woke up the sun was right here and it was warm so I stayed.”  
Nino wonders how long he had been asleep. Was it possible he’d been there throughout their entire meeting? Even slept through Yokoyama’s yelling in Kansai-ben and Yuriko’s triumphant cackles? That was no small feat.

“Yeah but school was over three hours ago.”  
“Ah.” he glances at the wall clock and shrugs, “I’d better get home for dinner or mom will be mad.”

The boy gets up and brushes himself off, tucking his sketchbook under his arm. As puffs of dust float into the air, catching in the sunlight before settling elsewhere, Nino wonders how long he had actually been there. 

He’s gone and out the door without another word, just as the sun vanishes behind the city, obscured by rows of office buildings and houses. 

Nino forgets to ask him about joining the band.

***

It gets to the point where every time Nino sees someone with spiked brown hair, he immediately turns from what ever he’s doing in the most dramatic way possible. Even Aiba has started to complain that he’s too jumpy. It’s not like Nino to obsess over something like this, but whenever Aiba asks, Nino simply says, “you didn’t hear his voice”, which seems to be enough explanation.

Their plans for starting a band are put on hold, and not just because Nino can’t seem to locate their elusive singer. No one seems to want to join, and Aiba’s so desperate he has put up posters all over campus, trying to lure in new members with promises of Chinese food and old mangas. 

As Nino is walking back to class after a short passing period, he spots someone in the distance. The form of a smaller than average high school boy comes into view, slouching comfortably and walking towards the hall of third-year’s classrooms. Nino’s not one to act on gut feelings, and he doesn’t think Aiba’s principle of destiny and fate have anything to do with getting what you want. 

He does believe that there’s a strong chance it’s the same guy from the music room, because not many students have the gall to walk around campus with earphones, and even fewer tote around a giant sketchbook.

“YOU!” Nino yells from down the hallway, not about to make the same mistake of not being heard. Several people turn around, unsure if Nino’s vague summons is directed toward them or not. 

The intended recipient continues to walk away, unfazed. 

Nino speed walks through the corridor, weaving through small groups of students waiting for classes to start, apologizing automatically whenever he brushes a shoulder. When he finally catches up, he’s on the next floor, breathing heavily. He taps the boy on the arm, “I was talking to you.”

“Oh, hi,” the third year removes his headphones and tucks them into his pocket, “Ah, the one from earlier.”

A sense of unknown urgency prompts Nino to avoid formalities like bowing and introductions. He’s sure that if he doesn’t talk fast, the boy will disappear again. “I’m starting a band with a friend. You have a good voice, you should join.” He says “should” but it’s a little too assertive to be a suggestion. “I’m Nino, I play guitar, and my friend Aiba plays drums.”

“Ohno Satoshi,” the boy replies, offering his unoccupied hand. His fingernails have chunks of black modeling clay underneath and random smudges of paint cover his exposed arm under the rolled up sleeves of his uniform. A matching set of colorful splotches also found their way into his hair. “And I don’t think I can be in a band.” 

“Why not?” Nino follows him even as he continues down the hallway, turning into the classroom marked 3-B. 

Before taking his seat in the back corner, Ohno mumbles, an echo of himself, “I don’t know.” The second bell, the one that alerts all students not in their designated classrooms that they are definitely late, rings and Nino puts his recruitment on hold. 

When he slides back into his seat in room 2-A, Aiba turns around with a grin that almost stretches from one end of his face to the other. “You found him, didn’t you?”   
Nino sighs as the teacher approaches with the distinct and all-too-familiar yellow of a detention slip. “I did, but he’s not interested.”  
“He’ll come around. Give him time.”  
“Another one of your gut feelings?”  
“No,” Aiba swivels around to face the front of the room, “I saw him grab one of the flyers.”

***

Once the name “Ohno Satoshi” is registered in Nino’s memory, he does his best never to let the older boy out of his sight because he seems to have a knack for disappearing into the crowd, melting back into anonymity. Free periods and lunch hours are spent tracking Ohno down from whatever sunny corner he’s planted himself in, and dragging him by the collar of his uniform to the music room. Ohno becomes a natural part of Nino and Aiba’s hang out, even joining the Multimedia Entertainment Club for some meetings. He’s eerily calm, like the ocean before a storm, and Nino worries that Ohno’s mind is more turbulent than his impassive demeanor suggests. No one is that relaxed all the time.

Sometimes Nino isn’t sure if Ohno is ever fully present, like a part of his brain, his drive and his dreams are somewhere else, maybe on a different planet, and Ohno doesn’t want to come back. Like that dream self keeps him anchored, in a weird, abstract sort of way. 

But he laughs easily and thinks Nino is funny, and really that’s all Nino wants in a friend.

He also has a knack for saying the strangest things at the most inconvenient times. It’s a whole different pace from Aiba, who spouts out the first thing that comes to mind. Ohno’s mental filter prioritizes everything with a system that only makes sense to him. Discussions of fish and nose picking often come up before anything else. 

At some point, they forget that they’re trying to recruit him.

Aiba never truly forgets, but he can be distracted for short periods of time, so two weeks after the discovery of Ohno Satoshi, Aiba brings up the offer again.

“So..Ohno,” Aiba says as casually as possible during lunch one day, “about the band..”

Ohno and Nino are sitting side-by-side, cross-legged on the floor. With his game device in hand, Nino mutters curses and motivations to himself while Ohno silently watches the screen. They both simultaneously look up, “The what now?” Nino says.

“The band Nino, the band!! No one seems to remember but me!” Frustrated, Aiba takes another, slightly more aggressive bite of something that’s almost, but not quite fried rice. “Ohno, you said you were interested in being our lead singer.”

The older boy tilts his head slightly, as if that particular promise was lodged far in his brain, stuck in a corner somewhere. It needed to be shaken free. “I did?”

“Well?” Aiba looks at him expectantly. “How about it?”

Ohno never really responds, just sort of shrugs and goes back to watching Nino play his game. But when they plan practices, he shows up, which means that in some way or another, he’s apart of the band.


	3. Honor Student Blues Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which Aiba has a bad first impression of Sho without even speaking to him

Spring

To mark the beginning of another semester, the entire student body gathers in the auditorium for a series of increasingly dull, obviously canned speeches from the principal and vice-principal. Nino always plans to skip this particular assembly in favor of sleeping for an extra two hours, but Aiba somehow manages to convince him to attend.

“It’s the same as last year Aiba, and I stayed up really late last night,” he grumbles, arms crossed over his chest. It makes him look angry, and also covers the spot where he buttoned his shirt wrong. 

“But I heard the student council president is going to do something special. Maybe we’ll get free food! You love free things Nino.”

“I will not argue with you there.” He takes an extra-large bite out of the pastry Aiba used to bribe him to accentuate the point.

The door makes a deafening screech as they attempt to slip in unnoticed, already ten minutes late for the assembly. Aiba finds an empty space in the line of second-years after pulling Nino away from Ohno, who he seemed to naturally gravitate towards. The principal’s droning monologue continues in the background as Aiba and Nino whisper-argue over which of them owes the other lunch. They have an ongoing tally of paybacks and favors that spans over the course of their eleven-year friendship. Everything goes heavily in Aiba’s favor because Nino has a startling habit of always forgetting his wallet.

“And now,” the principal continues without any hint of a segue other than the silence from finishing his rambles, “for a performance by student council president Sakurai Sho and our orchestra.”

Nino glances at Aiba and elbows him in the side when he notices the big, foolish grin on his face. 

From what he knows through half-listening to lunchtime announcements, reading flyers on billboards and eavesdropping on conversations from the upperclassmen, Nino only remembers that Sakurai is rich and incredibly smart. He’s the top of his class. Driven, especially for one so young. Focused and serious. A lot of words that all mean the same thing to Nino: boring. Everyone neglected to mention that Sakurai plays the piano.

And he’s pretty good.

The performance is some classical piece that Nino doesn’t know the name of, but he imagines it has the word “movement” and then a bunch of numbers that don't mean anything to anyone except people that have been dead hundreds of years. The whole student body stands in respectful silence as Sakurai weaves effortlessly through the piece. Crescendos, decrescendos, every note is played in a precise and calculated manner. Exactly how it’s written. Nino can almost hear the ticking of a metronome holding the correct, steady beat. The orchestra is flawless as well, all the bows flowing in a rhythmic ebb and flow like the morning tide. Back and forth. Nino finds himself closing his eyes to let the music resonate deeper.

Aiba frowns a bit and taps Nino on the shoulder. “He’s sweating a lot.”

“What?” He opens his eyes, returning to reality where Aiba continues to elbow him lightly in the stomach.

“Look at Sakurai.”

When Nino looks closer at the piano player’s face, he realizes that Aiba is right. Sakurai’s face is so rigid and tense that he doesn’t seem to even blink, even as beads of sweat run down his forehead and into his eyes. He looks angry, uncomfortable, and beneath it all, extremely nervous. His gaze never leaves the keys, his head is bent down watching his fingers, making sure he doesn’t miss a single note. It’s not just his face either, his entire posture is frozen, only his feet and hands move, like they’re separate from the rest of his body. 

The song ends with a clash of the symbol and a chorus of loud applause. From where Nino is sitting, he sees Sakurai relax, his shoulders fall and his face breaks into a relieved smile. He stands and bows before finding a place in the first row with the other third years. 

“Well I gotta hand it to you Aiba, he’s really good, but do you think he’ll want to joi-”  
“I don’t want him in the band.” 

His face is a mixture of pity and irritation, a strange combination even for Aiba, who can express joy and confusion simultaneously through one hiccupy laugh. He’s one of those people fortunate enough to have their default expression set to “cheerful and welcoming”, but the tightness of his jaw is enough for Nino to know something’s wrong. Aiba is sympathetic to everyone. If someone is crying, Aiba will cry. Hospitals and movie theaters are particularly lethal. He’s an emotional sponge. And now he’s absorbed Sakurai’s intensity.

As the students file out of the auditorium to their respective homerooms, Nino and Aiba avoid talking about Sakurai. Nino knows better than to bring it up because in spite of being deceptively easy-going, Aiba isn’t easily persuaded. Especially not when it comes to fun under duress. Sakurai’s performance was nothing short of an obligation. People shouldn’t do things if they don’t enjoy them. That was Aiba’s code.  
But Sakurai had more than drive, he had talent. After being around made musicians and born prodigies, Nino knew that it took much more than focus and practice to be good, though Sakurai probably did a lot of that as well. 

What Nino needs to do is remove the pressure.


End file.
